The 41 sea, land and air indicators used by the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to measure sea and land temperatures showed unequivocally that the world continued to warm throughout 2011. In July, NOAA reported that the last 300 months had all been above average temperature and that the 13 warmest years had all occurred in the 15 years since 1997. 2011 was additionally remarkable, it said, because a “La Niña” event was taking place, a naturally occurring oceanic cooling phenomenon that would normally bring temperatures down.

Despite stagnation or economic recession in many industrialised countries, concentrations of CO2, measured at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, peaked at more than 394 parts per million in May and are now 39% above where they were at the start of the industrial era and approaching the point when some scientists say it will be nearly impossible to contain global warming.

Christophe Kinnard, of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Arid Zones in La Serena, Chile reported in November that both the duration and magnitude of the current decline in sea ice “seem to be unprecedented for the past 1,450 years”.

“Everything is trending up – surface temperature, the atmosphere, and it seems also that the ocean is warming and there is more warm and saline water that makes it into the Arctic. The sea ice is eroded from below and melting from the top,” said Kinnard.

“In many ways, 2011 rewrote the record books. From crippling snowstorms to the second deadliest tornado year on record to epic floods, drought and heat, and the third busiest hurricane season on record, we’ve witnessed the extreme of nearly every weather category,” said NOAA spokesman Christopher Vaccaro.

2011 was described by many commentators as the “year of the tornado”. Between January and June, 43 major thunderstorms released nearly 1,600 tornadoes in the central, southern and eastern United States. Half happened in April, and 226 of them on April 27.

But 2011 was also the year of too much or too little water. It began with devastating floods in Australia which covered an area the size of France and Germany combined, and ended with tropical storm Washi killing nearly 1,000 people and making 300,000 homeless in the Philippines.

Massive droughts affected some of the world’s richest and poorest communities. The worst drought in 60 years gripped more than 10 million people and led to the death of thousands of people and millions of animals in Somalia and the Horn of Africa.

Meanwhile, Texas was badly hit by heatwaves and drought. The city of Austin had 27 consecutive days where the temperature was over 100F and 90 days in total when it reached that level. The Texas Forest Service said the continuing drought had killed 100-500 million trees, a figure that did not include the ones killed in wildfires that scorched around 4m acres of the state.

The year began and ended with drought and record temperatures in Europe. The average temperature for northern Norway in November was 5.3C (9.5F) above normal, the Danube was at its lowest levels in 60 years, and Germany and much of northern Europe had the driest end to a year since recordkeeping began in 1881.

2011 was also an extraordinary year for major earthquakes. In the seven weeks between 1 January and 21 February, Argentina, Chile, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Tonga, Burma, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Sulawesi, Fiji and New Zealand were all hit.

But by far the most damaging quake was the one that led to Japan’s deadly tsunami on 11 March. This killed 15,500 people, caused the meltdowns of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, and led to 160,000 people fleeing the area or being moved away. By the end of the year, it was estimated to have cost around $210bn in lost production and physical damage. Decommissioning the station is expected to cost a further $15bn.

Now for the good news. In July, the UN Environment Programme announced that investments in renewable energy had grown 32% in 2010, reaching a record $211bn since 2004. For the first time, investment in faster-growing developing economies was greater than that in developed economies.

“Without much stronger commitments for the next 5-10 years the Durban outcome will stay nothing more than smoke and mirrors – an illusion of ambition with no real targets or clear timelines,” said Nnimmo Bassey, head of Friends of the Earth International.

Negotiators also concentrated on establishing carbon markets for forest protection and transport.

Tigers and other charismatic mega-fauna appeared to do better in 2011. Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Burma and Nepal protected a further 2m hectares of land for tigers. India – which holds half of the world’s tigers – estimated an increase in the population from 1,411 in 2007 to 1,706 today. However, the WWF announced that only 18-22 Siberian tigers remained in the wild in north-east China.

Unexpectedly, a significant increase in the gorilla population was recorded in the Virunga mountains that are shared between Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. A WWF survey counted 480, an increase of 100 since the last count in 2003.

And in a small triumph for conservation, the UN Development programme declared in December that more than $100m had been raised, mostly by Latin American countries, to temporarily leave in the ground the estimated 900m barrels of oil believed to be below the Yasuni national park in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

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